Customer Reviews

Amazing Howard Hughes [VHS]

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(12)

 

 

I was so glad to find this on DVD that I failed to read the customer reviews before I bought it. Big mistake. Many of the finer scenes that I remember from the mini-series are missing. The quality of the DVD is excellent, and the sound is good, but about HALF THE FILM IS MISSING!! Tommy Lee Jones was outstanding in the lead role, but it's hard to tell from this mess. What an awful shame to cripple the film this way, just to fit it on a single DVD. Have they never heard of double-sided DVDs? Hopefully, with the interest generate by Scorcese's new movie, someone will do a proper release of this very interesting telling of the Hughes story.

TNT showed this a few years back and I recorded it to VHS without the commercials and I find myself watching that fuzzy old self-recorded VHS more than this DVD! They added a couple of meaningless scenes and removed many major and important ones. Watching this DVD after seeing the TV version (same applies to the VHS version) makes me feel sick! Wait till it comes around on TV and skip this one folks.

I was extremley disappointed in the movie a far cry from the first showing on TNT. Really cut up and hard to understand is there any way of buying the uncut version??????????????????????

I saw the original miniseries on t.v. It was quite good. However, the vhs tape I recieved thru amazon.com was cut by 50% or more which totally ruined it. To anyone viewing it for the first time, it wouldn't make any sense. The continuity is so chopped up all we're left with is a collection of seemingly unrelated events. The scenes that were left out connect everything together and also were very interesting as well. I don't like anybody deciding what is enough for me to see. Especially at $19.95 a crack plus shipping

I bought this version and was ripped off. Out of the 215-minute movie, they deleted 40% of it. Critical parts of the story are missing. They did not sell the movie as an abridged version.

In addition, the sound is so bad that it's very annoying to watch it. The sound has a great deal of phase shifting. If the original is in this shape, it needs to be restored before selling anymore copies.

The negative reviews about this movie being boring are right but for the wrong reasons.

I saw this movie when it first came out and it was great. But it so cut up in this DVD that it is difficult to follow and destroys most of the appeal this movie originally had.

I would bet if this movie had not been totally ruined by the studio who was too cheap to use more than one DVD, the reviews would be much different.

And that is a shame.

This DVD IS NOT THE COMPLETE TV Miniseries
One third of this movie has been edited out. WHY?

I taped the broadcast version on VHS years ago and purchased it when it was released on commercial cassette. I finally got the DVD version checked and I am totally disgusted. They probably cut the VHS version to hold it to 2 hours but there is no reason to short change us on the DVD. Some of the missing parts were critical to seeing Howard lose his marbles over time. I wish TNT would run it again and this time I would put it on DVD myself.

Tommy Lee Jones, in one of his first starring roles, plays eccentric billionaire aviator/moviemaker Hughes in this abridged version of a TV miniseries released a year after Hughes died. (I haven't seen the original, which is not available on video, so I'm reviewing this version as presented on DVD.)

The movie covers the span of Hughes' lifetime, from early scenes of his youth right through his end as the world's most famous hermit and germophobe. The story jumps around between Hughes' adventures in aviation, film, and other businesses. These intertwine in a segment showing the making of Hell's Angels a movie set in World War I, directed by Hughes and finally released in 1930. Hughes can't get any of his pilots to perform a dangerous scene close to the ground, so he does it himself with disastrous results.

Several famous actresses such as Jean Harlow, Katherine Hepburn, and Jane Russell, who had dealings with Hughes, are portrayed here. The film was based on the 1972 book Howard: The Amazing Mr. Hughes, by Noah Dietrich, one of Hughes' top assistants, who is played by Ed Flanders. (Not the guy from The Simpsons.)

Among the other flying scenes is Hughes testing the Spruce Goose, the famously impractical eight-engine wooden airplane with a 320-foot wingspan that barely flew. Also depicted are Hughes and his crew making one of the first around-the-world flights and his exploits running a major airline.

I too was all so excited to see this on dvd and bought it without reading any reviews.I did not think I needed to because I saw the movie twice on TV and thought it was excellent . I told my girlfriend all about it and we sat down to watch it and I kept saying all throughout the movie "Hey,they left something out" over and over again. I live in Shreveport Louisiana and I was real let down when they left that part out when he showed up here and wound up in jail.I bet ya'll would like to know more about that.Well I guess you will have to see the movie.BUT NOT THIS VERSION.THEY CUT OUT WAAAAY TOO MUCH!!!!